so it's gonna be forever
by Not.My.Orthonym
Summary: 'or it's gonna go down in flames.' The doppelganger curse is a little different, which makes things go very differently. E/D/S
1. nice to meet you, where you been?

"The mail has just arrived, my lady," Emily says through the door. She doesn't like coming in, Katherine muses. She's married herself, with children, so she knows how this works, but she refuses to come in.

"Just a moment, Emily," Katherine sighs, willing herself to get dressed. If the mailman has been by already, then the rest of the town will be waking soon. And it simply wouldn't do to find her in this state, now would it?

A hand catches her wrist as she slides off the bed, and she turns to smile at her companion.

"Come back to bed," he breathes, eyes still closed.

She smiles, and allows him to pull her closer. He slides his hand down and intertwines her fingers with his. She turns back to look at him.

"Don't ever tell me what to do," she says, all sweetness gone.

"Of course," he whispers, pupils dilating as the compulsion sweeps over him.

"Good," she smiles again, and gets back up. "Be a dear and help me into my corset, would you?"

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

He slips back into his room without much fuss shortly after, to get himself together. He's looking a little ravaged, as he should. She'd be offended if someone didn't look ravaged after a night with her. Those white high collared shirts and ties are such a nice fashion trend. It was so much harder to hide bites when collars gaped.

"You don't have to look so reproachful, Emily," Katherine says as she glides into the dining room. Emily keeps her eyes down, but her jaw clenches. "This would be so much easier for you if you just tried to like me." Witches have liked vampires before, it's not so unusual. But Emily resents every moment spent with her. Utterly unfair, is what that is.

"Your mail, my lady." Emily hands over a few letters.

"Don't you even what to know which one it was?" Katherine asks. If Emily isn't going to like her, she's going to have as much fun riling her up as possible.

Emily looks right at Katherine, more than reproachful, angry. "No." And then she turns and leaves.

"It was Stefan," Katherine calls after her, feeling petty. She doesn't like judge-y witches.

Katherine turns back to the mail. There's a note from Pearl to meet her in her shop, something important apparently. A letter from George Lockwood, most likely a progress report of some sort. And then –

A letter from England.

"Are you alright, Katherine?" She jumps a little, and whirls around to find Damon staring at her.

"Don't do that!"

"Sorry," he says, confused. He shouldn't be able to get the drop on her. She's a vampire. "Are – is anything wrong?"

He peers at the envelope in her hands, the one that she'd been staring at. It looks rather plain to him, although it's high quality paper. He glances up to her face. She's just staring at it, jaw clenched. She's – angry?

His father strides into the room and goes to grab the tea, when he sees Katherine.

"Katherine, my dear, you look troubled. Is anything the matter?"

"I – I don't know. Kindly give me a moment, would you?" She smiles, turning on the charm. Everything depends on what this letter says. She shouldn't have let either of them see her so rattled.

Katherine sits down and breaks the seal on the letter. The Salvatores stand back to give her some privacy, procuring cups of tea in the meanwhile. Even after she finishes reading, Katherine just sits there, jaw clenching and unclenching, with a white-knuckled grip on the letter itself.

Damon wants to go to her, to ask her what's wrong, but she might not like his prying. And the last thing he wants is to make Katherine even more upset.

And, of course, Stefan chooses that moment to sweep into the room. He's up late. Damon knows what that means.

"Father, brother," he nods to each of them. "Katherine, good morning. How did you sleep?" It's bait. Bait that Damon can't take with his father in the room. "What's this?"

"A letter," she answers him. Of course she answers him. "From my – " If she were just a little less ladylike, a little less perfect, he would call the noise she just made a snort. And the suddenly she stands, and turns to face his father. "I'm afraid I need to impose on your hospitality a little more."

"How so?" He asks, brow furrowed.

She smiles. Not her real smile, not the one she smiles just for you, and Stefan. No, this is more what she looks like right before she kills someone. "I was hoping you might be able to open up your home to one more. Apparently," she gestures with the letter still gripped far tighter than necessary in her hand, "my sister is coming to visit."

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

Elena Pierce hesitates slightly before she steps onto 'New World' soil for the first time. She has the feeling she won't be leaving for a long time. Well, not if Klaus has anything to say about it.

She's not surprised that her sister is not here to greet her. For one thing, she doesn't like extended carriage rides. Not when they could move so much faster on their own.

And, of course, she wouldn't have gotten the letter in time. Elena may have wrote it, but Klaus was always in charge of sending it. Enough time ahead for Kat to tell people she existed, but not enough time for her to run or do anything stupid. It's very carefully timed.

"Do you need help with your bags, my lady?" the porter asks.

"Yes, thank you," she smiles and gestures to the rented carriage.

"It's my pleasure, I assure you." He starts to move the bags. She follows him to the carriage, looking back over the sea. She wonders if she'll ever see England again. "Why is a lovely lady like yourself travelling alone?"

"I'm off to see my sister," she sighs. She knows the story. "We lost our family recently, and it's the first chance I've gotten to come visit her."

"Oh, where are you going?"

"A little town called Mystic Falls."

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"So," Damon says, "you have a sister."

"A sister you never told anyone about," Stefan contributes.

Katherine just smiles, finishing her makeup. They're in her room now, all three of them, with Emily standing guard as always.

She turns to them. "How do I look?"

"Perfect," they answer together.

"As always," Damon adds, leaning in to kiss her.

"Not now, Damon," she pushes his face away. "And I didn't tell you because I didn't think it'd be important. My sister and I aren't as – close, as the two of you."

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

The carriage is going as fast as it can and it's still too slow. Truth be told, she hates the carriage rides more than her sister. But it really wouldn't do for her to just show up with far too many bags to have travelled on foot. And she has to arrive in style, of course.

She just hopes she gets there soon. The bumps are getting tiresome.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"Pearl," she says as she sweeps into the shop.

"Oh, Katherine, good. You got my message." Pearl's face has its serious look on. Katherine knows she's only going to add to that. "Leave us," she compels the villagers in the shop. They smile, take their packages, and leave.

"I have something you need to know as well." Katherine sighs. Another week, just one more week, and she wouldn't have to deal with this at all.

"First, we deal with this." Pearl shuts the door carefully. She shoots a look at the Salvatore brothers.

Katherine sighs. "I told you not to worry about them." She links arms with both, and smiles at her old friend. "They'd die before they told anyone."

"We would," Damon adds, disliking the distrustful look Pearl gives him.

"The council members have begun purchasing large amounts of vervain."

"Damn," Katherine curses. She plays the surprise well.

Pearl steps towards her. "It may be time for us to move on again, Katherine."

Katherine smiles, wry and twisted. "You know I don't exactly get a say in that, right? We stay until we find what we came for. Besides, they won't suspect us. We walk in the day, remember?"

"But the vervain – "

"We just need to be more careful about feeding from now on. No more kills." Pearl sighs, then nods. It'll have to do. "And now on to more pressing matters."

"What is more pressing than our survival?"

"My sister is coming to town."

Pearl whirls around. "Elena? Already?" They've only been here a few months.

"I guess we're not the only ones getting antsy," Katherine sighs. Elena could mess everything up.

"When is she coming?" Pearl draws Annabelle to her. Elena's just the scout. She just paves the way. If she's coming, then he can't be far behind.

"Supposedly her ship got in early this morning. She should be here before night."

Pearl sighs, still clutching Annabelle's hand. "How long do we have?"

"A month or two, if we're lucky." Two weeks if they're not, but it won't matter by then anyway.

"And if we don't find it?" Annabelle asks, serious as ever.

"Well," Katherine swallows roughly, "let's just say we'd better find it."

"Find what?" Stefan asks, thoroughly confused. Katherine had a tendency to forget they were there when she was in a deep conversation with Pearl.

Katherine turns back to them. "Nothing," she says brightly. "Forget this conversation ever happened," she compels.

And they do.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

The carriage arrives at around six o'clock. Katherine had spent most of the day going around, casually mentioning that her sister was coming for a visit, so by now all of the important people were, of course, at the Salvatore boarding house.

Katherine hears the carriage coming before anyone else, but waits until Emily fetches her to go down to meet it. She is on Giuseppe's arm now, as he is her host. Besides, she didn't want to show favor to only one of the brothers in front of her sister. God forbid she thought she could have the other.

She shoots a look to Pearl as the carriage pulls up in front of the house. Neither is exceptionally pleased at Elena's visit.

Stefan and Damon stand just off to the side of Katherine.

"What do you think she'll be like?" Stefan asks.

"Who cares?" Damon responds. She's not Katherine, so who cares?

Stefan does, though he's not quite sure why. He just wonders – he wonders if she'll be like Katherine.

The carriage door opens, and Elena steps out into the setting sun. There's a collective intake of air, and Elena knows that Katherine must have left a little bit of information out. She always does.

"You must be Mister Salvatore," she says as she walks down the path towards the older man her sister is clinging to. "My name is Elena Pierce, and I thank you so much for opening your home to her in our time of need."

It takes him a moment to focus on what she said enough to respond. "Oh, of course, of course. It's tragic, what happened to your family. My condolences."

"Thank you," Elena says, glancing down demurely. She sees her sister scoff out of the corner of her eye. "Hello, Kat. It's been so long." Elena smiles.

"Not so long, sister, not quite so long," Katherine returns the smile with ice in her gaze.

Elena sighs, and turns back the Salvatore man. "Thank you for looking after her. I was in England when our family died, and this is the first trip back I've been able to take." They're still just standing in the walk, and hardly anyone has moved. Mister Salvatore is still just looking at her. Elena is a little fed up, mostly with Katherine for always, always, putting her in this situation. "Is there something on my face, Mister Salvatore?"

"Oh, no!" he gasps, embarrassed to have been caught staring. "It's just – Well, Katherine never mentioned you were twins."

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

There's a small party that night, to welcome Elena to town.

"This town really must have nothing to do, if they're holding a dance over me." Elena whispers out of the side of her mouth as she and Katherine play the perfect reunited orphans.

"Maybe it'll make you leave faster," Katherine shoots at her.

"Not exactly my choice to come here," Elena sighs. It's going to be one of those visits.

"And you wonder why I never welcome you."

"No, no, I wonder why you consistently forget to mention that I exist." Elena's just as willing to go there if Katherine is. "You know it would make it so much easier if you would just tell people about your twin sister. Make these first meetings less awkward."

"It wasn't awkward for me, dear sister." The last two words are pure malice.

"Excuse me," a young man steps in. One of the sons of her host, if Elena remembers correctly. He pauses for a moment. "I don't mean to interrupt the reunion, but I was wondering if you would grant me the honor of the first dance, Katherine?"

"Don't worry, you're not interrupting anything," Katherine smiles charmingly. "I would love to dance with you, Stefan." She doesn't even wave goodbye as he leads her to the dance floor.

"Has anyone told you about that?" Annabelle asks, suddenly right behind Elena.

"Must you always do that?" Elena asks, turning to see the girl. Annabelle smiles and nods, always pleased when she can sneak up on Elena. "It's good to see you, Anna."

"My mother's not very happy you're here." Annabelle attempts to be casual, sipping at a glass of probably mulled wine, if Elena guesses correctly.

Elena grimaces. "Yes, well, I always do cause trouble for her." Annabelle laughs at that. She likes Elena, despite everything her coming here means. Elena's the only one who always remembers she's in the room.

"I missed you," Annabelle says, catching Elena's hand for a moment.

"I missed you too," Elena says as she squeezes Annabelle's hand. "Now, what exactly is going on with my sister?"

Annabelle smiles. People rarely ask her for gossip. "Well, she's out there dancing with Stefan Salvatore right now."

"Yes, I see. Very pretty. A little young for her, maybe."

"Aaaand, waiting in the wings," Annabelle points to a man very intently watching Stefan and Katherine, "is the older brother, Damon Salvatore. Her other lover."

And there it is.

"And how obvious is she being about all of this?"

"The whole town knows they're both pining over her, but the full extent of it's still hidden. Her reputation is still mostly intact," Annabelle says as she disinterestedly picks over the remains of the food set out.

"Well, small blessings and all."

"There's more." Annabelle turns back to face Elena. "She's told them about us." Elena nearly drops her glass. "Don't worry, they're compelled to secrecy. But they know what she is. And …"

"And what, Annabelle?" Elena asks.

"She's planning on turning them." Elena snorts. "At least, that's what they think. And she's been teaching Damon at least to hunt." Annabelle takes a sip of wine. "She's been giving Damon her blood."

"And I assume she's told Pearl all this, and not exactly you?"

"You know Katherine. She tends to forget that I can hear as well as she can," Annabelle smiles.

Elena looks back to her sister, dancing far too close for convention to the young Salvatore. "Anna, what else are they compelled to do?" She can't quite ask the right question, but Annabelle understands.

"We don't know. She never tells my mother that."

Elena sighs, letting her head drop down a bit. It's never simple with Kat. "Speaking of your mother," she says, feeling the gaze from across the room, "I don't think she wants you talking to me."

Annabelle nods, pats Elena on the shoulder, and returns to her mother's side.

Elena downs her glass of wine. It's going to be a long night.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

Stefan gets three dances with Katherine before Damon interrupts. Katherine accepts his offer, and Stefan finds himself on the sidelines again.

He hears a peal of laughter, and turns to see Elena Pierce entertaining the Gilbert family. It's odd to see Katherine's face used in such a different way. It occurs to him for a moment that her smile is utterly enchanting.

The thought flits away before he has time to really think it.

He looks back at Katherine and Damon. Damon's making the most of the eye-flirting of the dance, and Katherine seems especially receptive to it tonight.

Stefan thinks for a moment, and then heads decidedly over to Elena.

"Pardon me for interrupting," he says, nodding to the Gilberts, "but it's the fourth dance in, and our guest of honor hasn't had a partner yet. I was wondering if you would do me the honor of dancing with me." He holds out his hand to Elena.

"My apologies, Mister Salvatore," she says, smiling, "but I actually just promised my first dance to Mister Gilbert here. You'll have to settle for second."

"If I let you go," Johnathan Gilbert jokes, and then leads her away. Stefan follows. Damon and Katherine are still dancing together, but he watches Elena and Johnathan instead.

The dance passes slowly, a waltz. But then Elena is holding out her hand, and he is taking it.

Her bracelet bumps against his wrist a little as they dance.

"Your sister has a bracelet just like that," he notes.

Elena's smile dims a little. "Not quite just like it," she says. "Mine, as you can see, has an E. Katherine's, as I'm sure you know, has a K." It had been a way to tell them apart at a glance. Some people had insisted on that.

"What does that mean?"

"I think you know exactly what it means, Mister Salvatore."

"Please, call me Stefan."

"Are you in love with my sister?"

He's taken aback for a moment by the forwardness. "Yes."

"And how much do you love her?"

"More than anything in the world," he answers, as she searches his face for something.

"And your brother?"

"What about him?"

"Is he in love with my sister too?"

Stefan's jaw clenches. "Yes."

Elena sighs, looking away from him. "And, if I were to guess, I would say that she is, what, in love with you both?"

He stares at her, brow furrowed and eyes puzzled. "Yes."

Her smile is sad and a little bit twisted, and he doesn't understand anything. "I am so sorry, Stefan."

"What for?"

She meets his eyes, her own moist. "For everything. Now, forget this conversation," she compels.

"Of course."

"Sister," Katherine says, suddenly next to her, Damon on her arm.

"Sister," Elena answers.

"Kindly stay out of my affairs, or I'll make sure you do."

"I wouldn't have to get involved if you didn't always make such a mess, Kat."

Katherine practically spits at her. Her eyes are as hard as stone. "Stop chasing after me, Elena. And since you're always after my men, here," she brings Damon forward, "might as well take a spin with this one as well. Stefan, come dance with me." Stefan follows after her like a lost puppy, leaving Elena standing with Damon.

Neither speaks for a moment.

"Well," Elena begins, "I would rather like a little fresh air, Mister Salvatore, if you'd care to join me?" He can't tear his eyes away from Katherine. "Yes, I thought not."

She leaves him looking longingly after her sister.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"Why are you here, Elena?"

Elena puts her brush down gently. "I do not understand how Giuseppe Salvatore has not thrown you out of his house yet. You do know the whole household can hear what happens in your bedroom, right?"

"He thinks I'll marry one of them," Katherine says, sitting down on the bed as if the room was hers. "And he thinks I'm rich enough that it doesn't matter." She's smug. Katherine is often smug. "I'll repeat myself: why are you here?"

Elena turns to her sister. "Why do you think?" she asks, eyes searching Katherine's face. "You've been here months, and you haven't found a single clue? He knows you're up to something, Kat."

"Don't call me that," Katherine snaps, out reflex more than anything else.

"What are you up to?" Elena pleads, eyes wide.

Katherine smiles and her teeth look like daggers. "Nothing." Elena just gives her a look. "Anyway, don't touch my stuff. The Salvatores are mine. Don't interfere."

"Don't worry, I have no intention of having your leftovers, Kat," the name is pointed this time, a barb to get under Katherine's skin. "Besides, the house seems a little crowded. The Gilberts have kindly offered to let me stay with them for the fortnight, if I were to wish a little more space."

"You're going to stay with the Gilberts?" And now it's Katherine's turn to search Elena's face for any sign of – of something.

Elena nods, not breaking eye contact. "I will move my things tomorrow. It's what's easiest for everyone." She doesn't really want to stay and hear Katherine having very enthusiastic sex a room away. Talk about bad for the health.

"Good," Katherine says.

And then she's gone, and the door shut behind her.

Elena sighs, and goes to lie on the bed. 'Nothing.' That's a lie if ever she's heard one. Kat wouldn't be so incredibly brattish if nothing was actually going on.

And the worst part, she thinks, is that she knows I know. She's not hiding it.

The game, of course, is to keep Elena guessing until Kat screws up and it all falls on Elena's head, because Elena should have known better. Elena should have stopped it. It's an old game, and one that Elena rarely wins.

And then suddenly Elena's door is opening, and Damon Salvatore, half-dressed is stumbling into her room. He's trying very hard to be quiet, and just hiding behind the door. Elena hears someone walk past down the hall, and into the room her sister is occupying.

He closes the door very carefully, before realizing that anyone else is in the room. Elena can't help but giggle at his reaction to seeing her on the bed.

"I – I thought – " he stumbles.

"You thought the room was empty, like it was yesterday," she says, rolling her eyes. "I presume you're hiding from whoever just went into my sister's bedroom."

He shoots her a winning smile. "Well, I can't exactly get caught in there, can I?"

Elena just shakes her head. "How she manages to do it, I'll never know."

"Do what?"

Elena meets his eyes. "Play men so masterfully." He quirks his brows at her. "Never you mind. You should be able to sneak along now, it'll be safe."

He glances at the door. "How do you know that?" She smiles and taps her ear. Realization dawns quickly. "So you're – "

"Was there ever any doubt?" she asks, a little offended and a little dumbfounded.

"I suppose not," he admits.

"Well, you should hurry along, Mister Salvatore," she says, gesturing to the door again. "And do try not to be seen. It does my reputation no good to see a half-naked man coming out of my room."

"Your sister doesn't seem to mind," he says, almost reflexively.

Elena's smile turns cold, and her eyes bore into his. "I am not my sister."

The depth of emotion stops him for a moment, before he just nods, and darts out the door as quietly as he came.

The noises from Kat's bedroom start up again.

Both in one night? Really? That's just cruel.

"You know I can hear that, Kat!" Elena complains. The noises actually get louder. "I have to sleep!" No response. "I know you can hear me."

"Sorry, sis," Katherine says, across the wall, enjoying this possibly just a little too much.

Elena throws a pillow at the wall, before pulling another one over her ears.

"What I wouldn't give for a witch and some sage!"


	2. magic, madness, heaven, sin

Stefan watches as the servants move Elena Pierce's trunks out of the house and into the Gilbert family carriage. Johnathan supervises as Elena thanks his father for his night of hospitality.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather stay with your sister?" he asks, a little baffled by the sudden change.

Elena pauses just the right amount of time, eyes lowered and face carefully sad. "I think my sister would prefer a little space, at the moment," she murmurs. She glances up through her eyelashes, watching his reaction. He looks appropriately uncomfortable with this level of emotion. Good, he won't raise that question again. And if she's judged him right, the rest of the town will know the sisters are on the outs before too long.

Not that they didn't already. After all, Katherine utterly failed to mention she existed until she showed up. The townspeople have got to know what that means.

"I'll just go help John with the horses, then," Giuseppe says uncomfortably. He pats her arm awkwardly, and strides away.

"You and Katherine don't get along?" Stefan asks. Elena turns to him. She had almost forgotten he was there.

"Not quite," she says.

"Why?" he asks, taking a step towards her. She ignores him, turning her face upward to feel the sun.

"It's such a nice day," she sighs happily. "This will take some time. Would you like to take a walk with me in the meantime?" He examines her face carefully. "Careful, Mister Salvatore," she begins to walk away, "if you keep that up, you'll get wrinkles."

He quickly catches up to her, offering her his arm. She considers it for a moment, before taking it.

"Why were you in England?" he asks, hoping to shift the conversation to safer topics.

"I've been there for years," she says, eyes sweeping over the garden. "If you're asking for the official version, I was there visiting a friend when the fire swept through Atlanta."

"And the unofficial version?"

She smiles. "I've been there for years," she repeats.

"Ah."

"I see you play croquet?" she asks, gesturing to the game still set up on the back lawn.

"Yes, although not very well," he admits. "Katherine is very good at it."

"Oh, yes," she laughs, "I'm sure she never loses." She glances up at him conspiratorially. "My sister hates to lose."

"So does my brother," he says, smiling.

"Well, who really _likes_ to lose?" Said brother pops up from nowhere. Stefan whirls around, to see Damon leaning over the low garden wall. Elena turns much more slowly, clearly unsurprised to see him. Stefan realizes she must have heard him coming.

"Do you make a habit of sneaking up on women in the garden, Mister Salvatore?" she asks, thoroughly unimpressed.

Shock flits over his face for a second. "Elena?"

She smiles, turning back to look at the garden. "You thought I was Katherine." She shakes her head slowly. "Shall I teach you the signs?"

"Excuse me?" he asks, much more formal now.

She pins him with a stare. "Shall I teach you the signs? How to tell my sister and me apart? Although," there's a hint of derision in her lip, "I would think someone so thoroughly in love would be able to tell the difference." She lets that hang in the air for a moment. "So, the differences. Well, the best would be our bracelets." She lifts her hand and the charm bracelet jangles around her wrist. "E for Elena, K for Katherine. Simple."

"Hard to spot, though," Stefan adds, trying to defend Damon a little.

Elena has to nod at that. "Well, it's easier for those with – better vision. But easier to see, our hair." She gestures to her own, carefully pinned up in a modest style. "Katherine wears her hair down and curled. I almost never do. Simple enough for you?"

"Are you calling us simple, Miss Pierce?" Damon asks, unsure whether to be offended or intrigued.

"How could you ever think that, Mister Salvatore?" she responds, eyes wide and face innocent. He feels a smile creeping in.

"Miss Pierce!" Johnathan Gilbert calls from across the garden. "The carriage is ready."

"Coming, Mister Gilbert," she calls back. "Gentlemen," she nods to you, and then she's striding across the garden.

"I don't think she likes us very much," Stefan says, eyes following her as she rounds the house.

"She's jealous of Katherine. I mean," Damon gestures to himself, "who wouldn't be?"

"Maybe," Stefan mutters.

"Well, I'm off to find Katherine, brother." And Damon turns to walk back into the house.

Stefan stares off after Elena, trying to figure it all out.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"Pearl!" John Gilbert clambers out of the carriage to meet the woman standing by his front door.

"John," she says, her gaze warm, at least until she sees Elena.

"My apologies, did we have a meeting today? I've been distracted trying to get Miss Pierce here settled," he says, sheepishly.

"No, no, I just heard that you were taking in Elena here, and I thought I would come say hello." The smile is frozen on her face, and she's giving Elena that classic Pearl stony glare. "I missed you at the welcome party last night."

"Yes, I'm so sorry about that." If this is how Pearl's playing it, Elena is more than happy to play along. "It was all so busy. Although I did have a lovely chat with your daughter." The air grows colder. "She told me so many fascinating things."

"Well," Pearl's smile shows every last one of her teeth, "perhaps I could show you around the town, make up for last night."

"I wish I could," Elena's voice is pure remorse, "but I'm afraid I really need to get settled in here. You know what it's like if dresses spend too long in a box."

"Of course. Later, then."

"Looking forward to it. I'll see to the boxes then." And Elena turns and does just that.

"I'm afraid I need to help her settle in," John apologizes.

"Of course, John," Pearl says softly. "I will come back later." He shoots her a relieved smile and her heart thumps a little harder for a moment. And then he is leading Elena into the house, trailed by several servants carrying trunks.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"So?"

"So what?" Pearl pulls her gloves off before turning to look at Katherine.

"What do you mean 'so what'? Is she moving into the Gilbert house or not?" Katherine's fuming.

"She seems to be sticking to her word." Pearl says. "For now."

"And yet you don't seem very happy," Katherine points out.

"She's here, Katherine! I'm never happy when she's here. She's a danger, to everyone, because where she goes – "

"I know! I know what comes after! But we knew this was coming."

"Well, it's very different to have it come." Pearl sighs, and begins aggressively reorganizing her merchandise. "You don't seem very concerned about this."

Because I know it won't matter, she thinks. "We still have time. We can still find the stone. Besides, sometimes Elena precedes him by months."

"And sometimes by days!" Katherine steps back, shocked by her friend's rage. "I can't risk it, Katherine. I can't risk Anna on this."

"And what will happen if you run?" Katherine's voice is cold. "If you run, he'll chase, you know he will. And he'll kill you no matter what. Just give it a bit more time, Pearl." Just one more week. Just one more week and it wouldn't matter anymore.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"Will that be all, miss?" The maid is elderly, and clearly not very fond of Elena. She wonders whether that's actually aimed at her, or at her sister.

"Yes, thank you so much," she says, smiling as winningly as she can. The maid curtseys and leaves as fast as possible.

She sighs and sits on the edge of the bed. Her dresses are apparently the height of fashion here, if the looks some of them got were anything to go by. Nothing but the best, she supposes. That's what he always says. And he bought them all, of course, before he sent her off.

The key to not going unnoticed is to seem like you're always the younger generation. Always follow the latest trends, get very excited about the future. The past is clung to by people who've lived in it. Disregard it, and no one will suspect a thing.

There's a knock at the door.

"Just a moment," she calls, as she stands up and checks her reflection in the mirror. She readjusts a pin in her hair for a moment, keeping it up in the more modest up-do that has distinguished her from Katherine for the last ten years at least. She at least can't wait until women are allowed to wear their hair down again without being accused of being 'loose'.

She opens the door to reveal a young black woman in maid's attire.

"Can I help you?" she asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"My name is Emily Bennet. I'm – "

"My sister's maid, of course." Elena smiles warmly. "Won't you please come in?"

Emily looks at her cautiously, before squaring her shoulders and brushing past her. Elena shuts the door softly.

"I've been sent here to tell you the rules." Emily is very carefully examining Elena's face. Elena gestures to the bed, before taking a seat on it herself. Emily shakes her head, remaining standing.

"My sister's rules, or your rules?"

"Both."

"And what about the other witches? Are their rules yours?" Emily glares at Elena, who stares straight back. "Why does everyone always get so offended when you just say things straight out? You think they'd be glad you're sparing them the bother of finding delicate phrasing."

"There are no other witches here." Emily's fists are clenched.

Elena meets Emily's gaze. "Okay. There are no other witches here. So I guess I'll have to follow your rules then." Emily's eyes narrow in distrust. "And, of course, my sister's. What are those rules, exactly?"

"Mine first."

"Alright."

"My family is to be left alone. You do not kill them, feed from them, or compel them. You tell no vampires outside of Mystic Falls of my existence. You do not involve me in personal squabbles. Do this, and I will never turn my magic against you."

"Agreed."

"What?" Emily's taken aback at how quickly that worked. No proposals of her own terms, no fighting – that's not like a vampire.

"I mean, it makes sense. You want to protect your family. I assume they're on vervain now, you'd have to be pretty stupid not to have them on it, but this way if they're ever off it, you're safe. You don't want word of your line spreading around either. And everyone knows that the worst place to be when vampires 'squabble' is in the middle." Elena hasn't broken eye contact, hasn't even blinked in a surprisingly long time. "So I agree to your terms. You have my word." She extends her hand to Emily.

Emily looks at it for a moment like it's going to plunge into her chest and rip out her heart. Then, slowly but firmly, she grasps it.

Elena smiles. "And the deal is struck." She lets Emily break the grip and step back. "So, now, what are my sister's terms?"

"If you disagree with any, you take it up with her. I don't get involved," Emily warned.

"I understand."

"You are not to kill anyone while here. And you are to stay out of her personal … affairs," the word brings an unpleasant taste to Emily's mouth. What Katherine is doing to those boys is wrong, she feels this in her gut.

"Meaning no interfering with the Salvatore brothers?" Elena asks, bemused. Emily nods. "She's always been rather protective of her toys," Elena mutters. "Alright, alright. What else?"

"That's it."

"That's it?" Elena asks, brow furrowed. "Just those two? Nothing more?"

Emily almost wants to ask her what she means. "No. Nothing more."

Elena considers this carefully for a moment. "Well," she begins, before clearing her throat. "Well, I guess – tell her that I accept her terms."

Emily nods, leaving as quickly as she can.

Elena remains on the bed, picking at her bracelet. "What are you up to, Kat?"

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

She pins him against the door, crowding in until there's no space between their bodies, until he can feel her corset as clearly as she can. It's the middle of the day and they're still fully dressed and she shouldn't be doing this. But then she's pressing her mouth to his because it's not what she should be doing but it's all she wants to do, because she shouldn't do it but she can't not. She wants, she wants so much, and she isn't in the habit of denying herself.

And when she pulls her mouth from his, it's only to kiss along his jaw, to suck at an earlobe and listen to the noises that he makes. Such lovely noises, as he holds onto her like she's his whole world and she kisses, and sucks, and licks, and unbuttons his collar.

"I love you," he breathes out, eyes closed and voice almost too soft to be heard.

And she smiles against his skin, happy.

And it's just for a moment, because then she remember that she has to leave, that it's less than a week now, that the plan is already in motion, rolling far too fast to be stopped. And that's when she looks down at artery in his neck,

and bites.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"Tell me about the Salvatores."

Annabelle turns to see Elena leaning against the door to the herb-drying room. "Don't tell me you're after them too," she scoffs. She doesn't see the appeal.

Elena smiles. "Not exactly. But my sister is going to great lengths to keep me from them, so I thought I'd investigate. And who better to ask but my favorite little spy?"

"You're doing that thing again," Annabelle says, walking towards her.

"What thing?" Elena asks, trying as hard to be innocent as possible.

"That thing where you act all charming and try to get information out of me so I don't realize how _dangerous_ it is," Annabelle mocks. "Tell me the real reason."

"Fine," Elena sighs. "My sister's up to something. She's doing everything she can to direct my attention to the Salvatores. She even sent her witch to warn me off them."

"Seriously?" Annabelle giggles. "That's a little much."

"My thoughts exactly."

"So, what, it's an act? They're just a distraction?"

"Maybe." Elena bites her lip. "But …"

"But what?" Annabelle asks. Elena wanders into the drying room, idly playing with some wolfsbane. "Come on, Elena, don't leave me out of this."

"It's just," she pauses, trying to find the right words. "Well, there I was last night, dancing with Stefan Salvatore. Asking all the standard questions, the questions I always ask humans who 'love' her – "

"Trying to see if he was under compulsion, right?"

"Exactly. So I was thoroughly distracted."

"And what did she do?" Elena gives her a look. Realization dawned. "She interrupted you? Why?"

"I don't know," Elena murmurs, trying to piece it all together. "So, I thought I'd ask you what you knew about them?" She sits down on one of the stools, gesturing to another. Annabelle pulls it over, the legs scraping over the stones.

"I don't really talk to them much," Annabelle admits. "Mother likes to keep me away from bit of Katherine's life, you know."

"But you've travelled with Katherine for – for ages now. You know what she usually goes after. So, is there anything different about Damon or Stefan?"

"I don't know. I guess – I mean maybe the whole two at once thing. Like, maybe the sex is just too good, she's actually starting to care?" Elena shakes her head, biting the inside of her cheek. "I don't know. Sorry."

"What were they like?"

"What?"

"Before she got to them, before she started with the compulsion. What were they like, with each other?"

Annabelle thinks back, to when they had just arrived. To that first night, the welcoming party at the Lockwood mansion. "They were – close, I guess? There wasn't – you know how now they look at one another and you can just see the competition in their eyes? That wasn't there, then."

"She got between them," Elena thinks out loud. "She's breaking their bond."

Anna shrugs. There's something going on here, something Elena's still not telling her. There's some meaning behind all of this that Elena can see that she just can't.

"Well, thanks," Elena says, standing up suddenly. "For doing what you can." She smiles, and Annabelle nods. Elena starts to leave, pausing in the doorway. "Anna?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you drying wolfsbane?"

"What?"

"That herb there."

"Oh. I don't know. My mother puts in all the harvesting requests."

Elena nods, distractedly. "Alright. Have a good day, Anna." Annabelle waves, and gets back to work.

Elena walks around the block to the front of the store. She's not surprised to see Pearl sitting out front. "Hello, Pearl." She smiles. "How about that tour now?"

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

She sends him to go clean himself up. Bandage, change of shirt, and he'll be good as new. In the meantime, she checks in with Emily. Apparently everything went well, which means Elena is probably scrambling around town trying to figure her plan out. Hunting down information about the Salvatores, or bothering Pearl about the 'no killing' thing. Asking the questions he told her to ask, along with plenty of her own. With any luck, that'll keep her busy long enough.

"Katherine!" Stefan comes up the stairs, smiling. "I have been looking everywhere for you."

Damon emerges from his room, wearing a new shirt, neatly hiding the bandage on his neck. Stefan freezes.

"Brother." Damon smiles. Stefan looks away, eyes dark and angry.

Katherine sighs. "Now, now, boys," she says, linking arms with both of them. "Now is not the time for fighting. Why don't we take a walk around town together, hm?" She doesn't even have to compel them, they're dying to do anything for her. And so they walk out together, and she has a Salvatore on each arm, and she will enjoy it as long as she can.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"What are you doing here?"

Elena laughs, a little bitterly. "What do you think?"

"We need more time." Pearl's grip on her arm is like iron.

"I don't exactly get to choose, you know."

"No, you go where he tells you," Pearl sneers.

"Look," Elena stops walking, and turns to look her in the eye, "I know you hate me. I put you and Anna in danger, I know that."

"You put everyone in danger!" Elena wants to say that Katherine does too, that Katherine's just as much a scout as she is, just as much a harbinger. But she doesn't. "Why, exactly, did he send you here?"

"He's getting impatient," she sighs, longing for the days where she could run a hand through her hair. Now if she touches it, it just gets unpinned. "It's been two months, and he needs the stone. He thinks – " she laughs here, a little bitterly, " – he thinks that you've found it already. He thinks you're plotting against him."

"Tell him we're not."

"Don't take it up with me," Elena says, resuming their slow walk around the square. "Take it up with Katherine. She's the one who's been lax in her reporting lately."

"Because we have nothing to report."

"Then why do you have all that vervain in the drying room?" Elena asks. If Pearl can go on the offensive, so can she.

Pearl's lips thin to an almost invisible line. "We've been too obvious. People are getting suspicious. They'll get more suspicious if I do not fill the order."

"Ah. Hence the 'no killing' rule." Pearl nods sharply. "What else have you been drying?"

Pearl turns to her, eyebrows knit together. "Nothing but vervain for days. We haven't had time. Why?" Her eyes narrow, suspicious. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing," Elena says, as sincerely as possible. "Just trying to understand exactly what's been going on."

"Pearl!" Johnathan Gilbert is rushing across the village green towards them.

"I'll leave you to your gentleman caller," Elena smiles, and leaves Pearl to talk to John Gilbert.

She's thinking over the wolfsbane, not looking where she's going, when she bumps into Damon Salvatore.

"My apologies, Miss Pierce," he says as he helps her to her feet. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," she replies, smiling. "A little dirt never hurt anybody. What are you doing in town, Mister Salvatore?"

"Katherine sent me to fetch something," he says, holding up a small package from Pearl's shop.

"Of course." She thinks for a moment, then links her arm with his. "Walk me to the Gilberts'," she compels.

They set off together, and she waits until they are out of Pearl's earshot to being the questioning.

"Answer everything I ask truthfully," she compels.

"Yes."

"Do you love my sister?"

"Absolutely." She searches his face, eyes narrowed.

"How do you love my sister?"

"With my whole heart, my whole life, my whole being."

She looks away, whistling lowly. "That's – that's very interesting."

They walk the rest of the way in silence.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

Katherine meets George Lockwood in the forest that night.

"Alright, what is so urgent that you had to meet tonight?" she sighs, wishing she could be back in bed enjoying the hospitality of the Salvatore brothers.

"They're moving up the attack," he says, stepping out of the shadows.

"What?" She whirls around to look at him, eyes wide and lip curled.

"They're frightened by the arrival of your sister," he spits the word almost the same way she does. "They think the vampires are preparing for something."

There are so many different things she wants to say, to yell, right now. She bites them back. "When?"

"Tomorrow night." She lets a curse slip through, before calming herself.

"Are we ready?"

"Everything is in place, although …" He stops, searching her face for something.

"What?" Just spit it out.

"It's only in place for you," he says carefully. "I can't bring your sister in on this, there isn't enough time."

She snorts. "Don't worry about it," she says, eyes dark. "She was never part of the plan."

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

The next night Elena finds herself in the company of the founding families again. Apparently, the only thing to do in this town is gather at a different house every other night. Last time was the Salvatores', an actual party, tonight is just a 'get-together' at the Gilberts'. There's music and drink, but no one dances tonight. The men drink port and the women drink sherry, and Elena misses vodka so much.

And she watches Katherine spend the whole night with Stefan Salvatore, ignoring the elder brother entirely. Giuseppe Salvatore looks on with approval he doesn't even bother to veil, and Damon stands on the sidelines.

"Why does no one talk to him?" she asks Annabelle, after dinner.

"He was supposed to go fight for the South," Annabelle mutters, sneaking a sip of sherry.

"Why didn't he?" Annabelle gives her a look. Elena sighs. "She told him not to." Annabelle just smiles and returns to her mother's side. "It's not fair to ruin his life, Kat," she says, knowing her sister can hear. But her sister's not listening, she's so wrapped up in Stefan Salvatore tonight, and Elena looks at her face and realizes what's different this time. And she looks around the room, at all the humans here, at Giuseppe Salvatore, and her heart breaks for Damon.

But it's not until he slips out, unable to look at them anymore, that she talks to him.

"It's awful, isn't it?" she asks, making her way over to him.

"What?" he responds. He just wants to be left alone right now.

"Being the ill-favored child."

"What do you mean?" He turns to her now, angry and upset and not in the mood to deal with this. But she's not looking at him, she's looking over the forest and picking at her bracelet.

"My sister – my sister is a piece of work." He has something to say to that, but she just barrels onward. "Everywhere she goes, she makes a mess of things. Literally everywhere. For centuries, she's been making a mess of things. And everywhere she goes, I have to follow. I have to follow and I have to clean up. I have been cleaning up her messes since we were children, and it looks like I'll be doing it into eternity." She's bitter, and angry, and in a very similar emotional place to him, he realizes.

"I suspect my brother feels the same way about me," he mutters.

"Ah, but, you see, there's the difference," she laughs.

"Hm?" He doesn't want to be here, he wants to be alone, and he doesn't understand why she's telling this all to him.

She looks at him now, her eyes soft and sad, and he thinks for a moment that she's going to cry. "Oh, Damon, the whole world can see that your father favors your brother. The town favors your brother. My sister's in love with him, that's for sure. Maybe with you too, but definitely with him."

"And?" His jaw and his fists are clenched, because what the hell does she know? She's been here, what, two days?

She places her hand on his arm, making him look her in the eyes. "And it is the worst to be second. Isn't it? Because, although my sister is, well, objectively, a bitch, somehow, people always like me less." He doesn't know if he's more taken aback by the language or the sincerity. "It's because she's charming, and so men fall at her feet. Our father loved her the most, thought she'd be the one to one day make something great out of herself. Our – patron, at the moment, would choose her over me in a heartbeat. It doesn't matter that I do everything right, she's pretty and charming and ruthless, and everyone always likes her better." There's something desperate in her eyes, something that he can't quite understand.

"You think she's going to choose Stefan," he finds himself saying.

"Oh I don't know. I don't know if she'll choose at all." What? "I just – I feel so bad for you, Damon."

"Why?" he breathes, searching her face for answers.

She smiles, twisted and bitter and, above all, sad. "Because you love her. You really and genuinely love her. Don't you?" He nods, because yes, he does. Because he loves her more than anything in the world. He would die for her. He would kill for her. "You don't deserve this, Damon," Elena says, shaking her head slightly, and she can see that he _just doesn't understand_. "Everyone deserves someone who will choose them first. Remember that. Above all else, remember that." It's not a compulsion, just a maxim to live by.

He goes as still as stone in under her hands. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because you are the first person in a long time that I think will understand. Because as much as I hate her, as much as she is always, always chosen over me, I love my sister. With all my heart. And you love your brother, too. You hate him, but you love him. Don't let her ruin that." She sees him withdraw from the conversation, sees him retreat somewhere her words can't reach him. She doesn't quite know what she was trying to do, or if she even thought she could do anything. She just – she couldn't let Katherine do this to him. Not without him, not to Stefan, not to anyone, not without her at least trying to fix it. She pulls back, withdraws her hands, steps away so they've got room to breathe. "I'm sorry, I'm just feeling a little emotional."

When he speaks, his voice is cold as steel and just as strong. "She's going to choose me. She's going to turn me, and we're going to be together forever. Not him. Me. She loves me. She may be with him now, but tonight – tonight she's all mine." And she knows what that means, and she wishes she could hit him upside the head and tell him how he's being played. But he won't listen.

"Maybe. Just – Just be careful, Damon," she says, stepping back towards the house. "And, forget this conversation," she compels, before slipping back into the party.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

She doesn't struggle, when they grab her from her room. She's in the middle of her needlepoint, and all she can think is, 'Oh.'

'Of course.'

'How did I not see this coming?'

They force vervain down her throat, and she swallows. They bind her mouth in a muzzle, and she lets them lead her away. All around her is chaos, fire, and fighting, but she is calm. They think she's drugged, but she's been taking vervain for decades by now. She waits until they are shoving the vampires into the church, guns with wooden bullets pointed at them, before she runs faster than anyone can blink.

With any luck, the church will be ablaze before they realize she's missing.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

When she hears, several months later, that Pearl was among those in the church, she sets out to find Annabelle. It's dangerous, and stupid, and utterly sentimental, and she does it anyway.

"She's not dead," is the first thing Anna says to her, when she finally finds her. "My mom, she's not – the witch cast a spell. They're fine, they're in the tomb."

"Why would Emily protect them?"

"Damon Salvatore promised her that he would protect her family. He needed to make sure Katherine would be okay." And then Annabelle is grasping her hands like she needs the connection to live. "Help me. Promise, promise you'll help me get her out of there. I can't live without her, Elena."

And she wishes, so badly, that she was more like her sister. That she could just say no, and walk away, because it would be so much safer.

"I promise. I'll help you, I promise."


	3. oh my god, look at that face

One hundred and forty-five years later, Stefan Salvatore finds himself back in Mystic Falls. This isn't exactly unusual. He's returned multiple times over the century and a half, always only for short periods. It's odd, it's always odd, to see the modern version of the town he grew up in. Most of the founding families have moved from one home to another to another; most of the old houses are gone. It's very odd to see people walking around texting in the places where he used to ride horses with his brother.

So he usually doesn't stay very long. It's unsettling to go back to your home town and not recognize anything. It makes him feel old.

But he comes back anyway. He doesn't know why, it just – it feels like he's not done with Mystic Falls yet. Or maybe Mystic Falls isn't done with him.

So he's back and he's hunting one night in the woods, down by old Wickory Bridge, when a car comes around the bend far too fast. He hasn't found anything yet, he's still hungry, and when the car goes over the edge, he hesitates for a moment. If someone's bleeding, if there's blood in the water, then that's it.

But he has to try.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

He goes to their funeral. After pulling the kid from the car, after failing to save them, he figures that he owes it to them to see them off. He'll leave after that, he swears, but first he has to say goodbye.

He wonders if he had just moved faster, if he hadn't waited, if he'd just – just gone …

So he has to go. He has to pay his respects to the Gilberts.

He spots the kid, Jeremy, through the crowd, right up at the front. He's crying, clinging to a smaller form to keep himself upright. It's been a week since he pulled him out of the car, out of the river, and into a world where his parents were dead. Stefan wants to talk to him, wants to go over and tell him how much his parents loved him, what his father did for him, but he can't. Even if he made the kid forget, it would kill Stefan inside. Besides, there are too many witnesses.

He sneaks in the church after everyone else, sits in the back to listen to the service. The pastor says something using the phrases 'pillars of the community', 'loved by all', and 'tragedy', but he doesn't really listen. He sits there and thinks about how he couldn't go to his own father's funeral instead.

Jeremy stands up and manages his way through a short eulogy for his father, Grayson Gilbert. It's intensely personal, and a little too close to home. He talks about this party that he went to, how his parents came to pick him up, and he uses the word 'fault' far too many times. And Stefan thinks maybe it's good he doesn't know the rest, because maybe this kid would take that on himself too. And he doesn't look strong enough to carry more guilt than he already is.

Jeremy stumbles down the stairs, and the next speaker, a girl, is catching him and steadying him. The same girl who steadied him while he was crying, Stefan realizes. He can't quite see her clearly, half hidden by Jeremy, then walking up the stairs, but when she turns to face the audience full on, the world stops.

Katherine.

And suddenly he's fleeing the church, fleeing the funeral, running into the woods because he can't handle this white hot rage flooding through him, this anger he feels in every inch of his being. Because how dare she, _how dare she!_

She's there, at the funeral, pretending to be human of all things, and she's going to speak at the funeral of some people she's scamming.

And he remembers the Gilberts, Grayson and Miranda, and how he couldn't pull them out in time, how he could only save their son, Jeremy. He remembers Grayson Gilbert telling him to leave him behind, to save his son first. And there, standing at his funeral, eulogizing him and his wife, is _fucking Katherine_.

He had to leave, he had to flee, because hearing even one second of her defiling this would've driven him right out of his control. He would've gone places he never wants to go again.

He's not sure how he winds up with the stake. It's a little bit of a blur, because he's trying so hard to _not bite anyone_ that other functions have taken a backseat in his brain. He's pretty sure he found it in Zach's room, because that makes more sense than any alternatives, because he did not have time to whittle it.

But he knows that he does have a stake now, however he got it. He's gripping it so hard he's actually giving himself splinters. He knows what he wants to do with it, but he's not sure if he should. He's not sure if he could either. It would require surprise. She's older than him, and presumably not on the animal blood diet, which puts him at a distinct disadvantage. But maybe, if he could be fast, hit her before she even knew he was there, he could do it. He could kill her.

But does he want to?

… Well, yes. Obviously. A lot. A disturbing amount, actually.

But should he?

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

He goes back to the funeral. He hides in the woods along the edge of the cemetery like a monster from a fairytale. He watches her place two roses on the grave with bile rising in his throat. He sees so many people come up to her and comfort her. He sees people hug her, tuck her face into their shoulders and tell her it'll all be okay. Jeremy clings to her hand the whole time.

She doesn't leave. She stays, as people leave to get ready for the wake. The crowd thins as even Jeremy and his aunt leave to take care of things at home. She says she wants to say a private goodbye, that she'll meet them back at the house, and he makes his decision.

He waits until she's alone. It doesn't take long.

He doesn't wait for her to talk to them. The minute she's alone, he strikes.

He's running as fast as he can and the stake is aimed to strike her heart from behind, because that's exactly what she deserves. He's just about to hit flesh –

And then there's an arm wrenching his hand behind him, twisting his wrist until it snaps and he has to let go of the stake. He doesn't know how or when she got behind him, but he's not going to let her win this. So he thrashes backward, feeling his skull connect with her face in a sickening crunch of cartilage and bone. She doesn't let go of his broken wrist, but clings and rams him into a nearby tree, scraping his face against the bark. She presses up close, pinning him, before driving the stake into the tree next to his head.

"Katherine," he snarls, trying to break from her iron grip. Of course she'd want to drag this out, she couldn't just stake him.

"Nope," says a voice by his ear. "Guess again."

The confusion forces out the rage for a second, before his eyes focus on the jangling charm bracelet bumping against the stake she's still gripping. His eyes widen.

"Elena," he breathes.

She rolls her eyes and releases the now limp vampire, stepping several feet back to watch him carefully. "You were gonna kill Katherine?" she asks, eyebrows raised. "That's a little harsh, don't you think?"

He winces as he fixes his snapped wrist, the scrapes from the tree already mostly healed. He turns to look at her, eyes dark and searching, but he doesn't say anything. She meets his gaze head on.

"Stefan Salvatore," she mutters. "Never thought I'd see you again." She wipes at the blood on her face, and snaps her nose back into place.

"I thought you were dead," he says.

She doesn't explain, just shrugs and starts to dig through her bag. "Can we make this quick?" she asks, extricating a pack of makeup-wipes and a compact from her purse. "I have a wake I need to get to."

She sounds so blasé about it all, the anger flairs up again in his chest. "What are you doing?"

"Getting rid of the evidence of your idiotic attack," she says, dodging his real question. "Why are you so weak?" she asks, eyes searching his face. He almost believes the concern in her voice. "Are you alright? You should've been able to put up more of a fight than that."

He bites down on his answer, deciding she doesn't need that much information.

"Fine, don't tell me." She snaps the compact shut, tucking everything back into her bag. "I don't have time to talk now. If you have something to say, find me later. I have to get home." She's annoyed – no, she's pissed. She's pissed that he attacked her, that he nearly ruined this dress, that she has to deal with his shit on top of her own. She's pissed that he's utterly misinterpreting what's happening right now, but above all she's pissed that she's been robbed of her private goodbye. He took that from her.

She turns to leave and finds herself yanked back against him, and she whirls around to snarl at him with dark eyes and black veins and pure anger, because it is so much easier to be angry right now.

"You have no right to intrude on their grief," he growls right back, the darkness creeping into his eyes now.

She laughs, just once, harsh and bitter and a little broken. "You don't understand anything," she hisses, breaking his hold on her wrist by snapping his fingers. He goes to – to tackle her or punch her or something, anything, to stop her, but she plunges her hand into his stomach before he can do anything. It's pure agony, and he finds himself actually paralyzed by the pain. She pulls her hand out roughly, and somehow, he doesn't know how, but somehow that hurts more, it fucking burns, and the next thing he knows he's lying on the ground gasping for breath as the hole begins to heal. She crouches down next to him, using his shirt to wipe the blood off her hand. "Elena Gilbert." What? "When you ask around town about me, that's the name you should use. Elena Gilbert."

And then she leaves him there, lying on the ground in the middle of the cemetery, next to two fresh graves, covered in blood, and feeling more confused than he's been in a long time.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

She walks back to the Gilbert house, the anger fading back to grief. All she wanted was to say goodbye to Grayson and Miranda, to explain everything, and he, Stefan fucking Salvatore, ruined that. All because he thought she was Katherine.

Amazing how her sister still manages to ruin her life daily.

Maybe she'll try again tomorrow.

She walks into the house biting back tears. Not now, not now, not when Jeremy and Jenna need her to be strong. She swallows down her feelings as she walks into the kitchen. "Elena!" Jenna calls, struggling to pull two casseroles from the oven while balancing a third that needs to go in. Elena's by her side as fast as humanly possible, holding the cold casserole while Jenna deals with the warm ones. "People should be showing up shortly."

"Think we've got enough food?" Elena jokes.

Jenna laughs, a little too loudly, as she puts the food out to cool. "It's almost like they know we can't cook," she retorts, eyebrows raised and smile a little too wide. Elena smiles back, carefully restraining giggles. We're edging into hysterical, she thinks. It's too many emotions all at once, and we're edging into hysterical now. She wants to make sure they don't get there, because hysterical leads to crying, and they have people coming over soon.

Elena and Jenna set about setting out the food. Since the deaths, people have been by every day with casseroles, chilies, cakes, pies, stews, and more. Far more than three people could eat in a week. It's nice not to have to cook anything for the wake though.

"Where's Jeremy?" Elena asks fifteen minutes later, when the food is all set out and she feels a little more in control of her life.

"He went up to his room when we got back," Jenna says, trying to slice a tray of brownies. "I think he just needs some time, you know? It's still so –" She stops abruptly, unable to find the right word. It's still so sad? Like it'd stop being sad at some point?

"Fresh," Elena offers.

Jenna nods. "Yeah," she says, her voice rough.

Sharp, is the word Elena wanted to use. It's not that it's fresh, she thinks. It's that the pain is still new, still sharp. After a while, it dulls. It becomes an ache, not a cut. Eventually you get used to it, she reasons. Eventually it just becomes a part of you.

But that's not something she wants to tell Jenna. She wants Jenna to think it goes away, she doesn't want Jenna thinking that she'll live with this for the rest of her life. She wants Jenna to feel that hope. She thinks that's very important.

Someone knocks on the door, and Jenna pulls a face at her. She smiles, and collects herself for a moment before going to answer it. No one expects her to be happy, but she's not allowed to cry at this. At least no one expects her to be happy. That's one nice thing about wakes.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

He doesn't go to the wake. He doesn't watch her. Instead he goes home and reads over his journals from 1864. The last entries he wrote as a human.

He remembers Elena Pierce, but mostly because he remembers most of those last few days before he died. He knew her for three days 150 years ago, and so it shouldn't be surprising that the most substantive thing he wrote about her was 'Katherine does not like her sister'. But it still frustrates him to no end.

Usually, being someone Katherine didn't like would automatically be a positive. But she's her sister, and you never know with vampires …

He doesn't know what she's doing here. He has no clue what her plan of attack is, if she even has one, if she's working an angle, or if she's just – just here.

Why is she here?

He traces his finger over the last line he wrote the day she arrived.

_There's something about her._

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"So what do you think? I mean, Grams is crazy but –" Bonnie shrugs her shoulders, tone a little derisive, but smile wide.

"Bonnie, you know I think you can do anything," Elena laughs.

"It's nuts," Bonnie says, rolling her eyes and scrunching up her nose. "I mean, me, psychic? Scratch that, actually, _anyone_, psychic? Magic? Like, what the hell, right?"

Elena's breath catches for a moment, as she wonders for the millionth time if she should tell her. "You never know," she murmurs, smile softer now, almost sad.

Bonnie laughs. "Don't tell me you're a believer."

"Oh, I don't know," Elena sighs. "Lately it feels like –" She's cut off as something slams against the windshield. Bonnie hits the brakes hard and Elena nearly slams her head against the dashboard.

"What the hell was that?" Bonnie asks. "Elena, woah, you okay?"

"I'm – I'm fine, Bonnie," she says, regaining control of herself.

"Are you sure?"

"Don't worry about it, okay?" she says, trying to sound just fine. "We should get to school, can't be late on the first day."

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"Elena!" Caroline strides across the hallway, heels clicking against the linoleum. "Hey! How are you, are you okay? Is she okay?" She turns to Bonnie halfway through asking, not trusting Elena to answer.

"Caroline," Elena says, putting her hand on Caroline's shoulder to refocus her attention. "I'm right here. And I'm fine. Thank you." She even smiles to prove it.

"Are you sure?" Caroline asks, forehead scrunching up.

Elena rolls her eyes. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

"Because –" Caroline begins, but Bonnie cuts her off with a look. "Well, I've got to get going." She pulls Elena in for a brief hug. "See you in class, hopefully," she says as she continues her way down the hall. Elena marvels for a second at how she somehow manages to make the crowds part before her.

She and Bonnie smile at each other and shake their heads, before starting to head off to first period.

"Wait a second," Bonnie stops right in front of the main office, looking through the open doorway. "Who's this?"

Elena glances in, and freezes.

She hasn't seen him all summer, not since he attacked her at the funeral. If it makes any sense, she's felt him a few times. Someone's been following her, watching her, and she thinks it's him. Who else would be? She's never been able to confirm, but she's pretty sure. And now he's here, at her school. Enrolling by the looks of it.

What's he up to?

"All I'm seeing is back," she says, trying to sound offhand, knowing he can hear her.

"A hot back," Bonnie says, an appreciative smile creeping over her face. Elena hears the little huff of pride from inside the office, and rolls her eyes. _Boys_.

She tries to focus in on what he's saying, letting Bonnie think that she's just appreciating the view as well.

"Please look again. I'm sure everything is there." She can hear the compulsion in his voice, and it takes everything in her being to keep from going over and smacking the back of his head. That's his plan to get enrolled? Just compel the receptionist? The minute anyone looks at his file, they'll notice all the missing pieces! She makes a mental note to fix this for him later. The last thing she needs right now is for any vampire to be discovered in Mystic Falls. It tends to lead to increased scrutiny.

She sees Jeremy ducking into the boys' bathroom, and she just knows something is off. She leaves Bonnie admiring Stefan Salvatore's ass.

She catches Jeremy putting in eye drops to hide the red in his eyes. "You have got to be kidding me."

He whirls around when he hears her voice. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"What are you doing, Jeremy?" She gives him the most disappointed look he's ever seen. "You can't do this, not here. Do you have any idea how much trouble you could get in? How much trouble you could get Jenna in?"

"Look, maybe you don't get this, because they weren't your parents," he spits at her. "You have no right to tell me what to do." He shoves past her into the hallway. She just stands there in the boys' bathroom for a moment, blinking back tears.

She manages to literally crash into Stefan Salvatore as she leaves. She swears he must have timed that.

"Sorry, sorry," he says as she makes space between them. He glances behind her and quirks an eyebrow. "Is that the men's room?"

She blinks back the urge to hit him. She knows he heard her and Jeremy, he must have. And yet he's still being a dick about it. "It's, uh, it's a long story," she says, grimacing. She goes to walk past him, only to have him 'accidentally' step in her way. They do an awkward little dance, before he finally steps out of the way and she finds her way back to Bonnie.

She glances back as she walks to her class, to see him looking after her.

_What's he up to?_

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

She can literally feel his eyes on her in history, and it's kind of pissing her off. It appears no one ever taught him anything about subtlety.

Bonnie notices too, and manages to text her about it. Which means Elena now has to pretend to notice, and look over to him. If she doesn't, it's all she'll hear about for the next two days. It's not polite to ignore your friends.

So she turns her head slightly and meets his gaze. She can't read his face, doesn't know what he's thinking, what he's doing, so she makes her face match his as best she can. If he's going to confuse her, she's going to confuse him right back.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

She's been back to the cemetery at least once a week since they died. She's tried saying goodbye, tried leaving it all behind her, but it never felt right. She never felt done with them. She wonders if he hadn't interrupted, if she'd had that goodbye at their funeral, if she'd still feel this way.

She freezes when the crow lands on a nearby tombstone.

She looks at it for a moment, and then it looks back at her. She huffs a laugh. "You have got to be kidding me." She hasn't seen someone use a crow like that since … for a very, very long time. It's considered a bit of a faux pas, to be honest. It's kind of, well, over-the-top?

Stefan hadn't struck her as that type. But who else could it be?

She keeps eye contact with the crow as she packs up her things. It doesn't move.

As she turns to walk towards the lake, she feels the fog stir up around her. She can't restrain the eye-roll that provokes.

She shouldn't be surprised when he's waiting by the water for her. "You don't think this is a little much?" she asks, gesturing to the fog that's followed her.

His eyebrows knit together. "What?" She examines his face, and rapidly reevaluates. He's not doing it. So – so someone else must be.

"Never mind," she says, turning her gaze to search through the trees.

"What are you doing here, Elena?" he asks, searching her face for some kind of clue.

"What are you doing here, Stefan?" she replies, feeling childish.

"I asked you first."

"Well, I asked you second." He can't help the laugh that escapes him because _seriously?_ _What is she, five?_ And she can't help but crack a smile too, because yes, yes she is five, and this is how she's going to deal with him.

"You visit them a lot," he observes.

"My – the Gilberts?" she responds, looking out over the water now.

"How did you do it?" he asks, genuinely curious. "How did you get them to adopt you?"

She bites down her response to that. She wants to swarm at him, to make it clear that she didn't 'get them' to do _anything_. She wants to tell him that they _chose _this, that they _chose_ her. She wants to say that they were her _parents_, more than anyone has been in a very long time. She knows what he thinks: that she compelled them. Well, she didn't.

But she did lie to them. She falsified records, she pretended to be human, and she never told them a thing. They wouldn't've been her parents, not if they'd known. They'd have killed her.

So she just sighs, and says, "I've got to get home. It's my night to try to cobble together some form of dinner."

She speeds away before he gets the chance to say anything.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"I'm home!" Elena calls out as she throws her backpack on the couch.

"Hey," Jenna says, poking her head out from the kitchen. "You're early.'

"Yeah, well, it's my night to try and figure out dinner," Elena says as she walks to join her In the kitchen. "If it's going to be actually edible, I should start early." Jenna pulls a face. "What does that look mean?"

"It means, I forgot to tell you something," Jenna replies. "I've got some late night thesis work to do, so I'm actually going to be eating on campus."

"And Jeremy is … ?"

"… He just left to go to the Grill. I think he's eating there."

Elena nods slowly. "So I'm not making dinner." Jenna shakes her head. "Well," Elena sighs, "I guess I'll go eat at the Grill too, then. Maybe I can get Bonnie to meet me." She turns to walk back to the living room, to grab her bag again.

"Wait!" Jenna calls out. She digs in her purse, and pulls out a twenty. "Don't stay out late, it's a school night," Jenna smiles, and hands her the money.

She smiles back. "Well done, Aunt Jenna."

"Yeah, I think I'm really getting the hang of this. Alright, go meet your friends."

Elena picks up her backpack, slinging it over one shoulder and tucking the twenty into her jeans. She's opening the door to leave when there is Stefan Salvatore, on her doorstep.

"… I was about to knock," he says, trying to look sheepish.

"What are you doing here?" She can't help it. She doesn't want him here. She can't keep her ire hidden, and she doesn't want to. He'll ruin _everything_.

"You, uh, you dropped this," he says, holding up her journal that she was absolutely sure she had tucked into her backpack. "And, um," he rushes on, picking up on her mood, "we weren't done talking."

She holds out her hand for her journal, her mouth a thin, hard line.

"I didn't read it," he says, giving it to her.

"Really?" she says, clearly not believing him.

"I mean," he stumbles over his words a little, "I wouldn't want anyone to read mine."

She's staring at him, trying to read his face, trying to understand why he's _here_. He shifts a little uncomfortably, but he meets her gaze.

Jenna picks that moment to notice that someone's at the door. "Elena!" she calls, coming over to see. "Who's this?" she asks, eyebrows raised.

"Hi," Stefan reacts faster, holding out his hand. "I'm Stefan Salvatore, I'm new at Elena's school."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Stefan Salvatore." Jenna shakes his hand, shooting a 'meaningful look' back at Elena. "Elena's just heading out to the Grill to meet some friends, maybe she could take you with her." Okay, Elena needs to give this whole town lessons on subtlety because seriously Jenna!

"Oh, I don't want to be a bother." He's playing the nice, polite teenage boy, and she wants to strangle him for it, because he's winning this interaction. He's winning Jenna over, and it will make her seem like the jerk if she doesn't invite him, because there is so much going on here that no one else can see.

So she sighs, and smiles, and says, "You wouldn't be, I'm sure. I'm just meeting some friends, but you can come if you like." And he smiles, because he's won, the bastard. "I'm just going to put this away," she holds up her journal, "and then we'll walk over."

She heads upstairs, and tucks her journal behind her mirror, before taking a moment to rest her head against the glass. She gets the feeling this year is going to be a tough one, as if she didn't know that already.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

She shoots off a text to Bonnie, who's apparently already at the Grill as they start the walk over. Caroline's there too, which might actually make a nice buffer.

"So," he says, and she turns her head towards him, "your friends …?"

"Bonnie and Caroline," she supplies, helpfully.

"Do they …?"

"Do they what?" she asks, innocently. She'll make this as hard as possible for him, just to spite him.

"Do they know what you are?"

She sighs. "Can't we talk about literally anything else? Why is it always 'tell me every detail about pretending not to be a vampire' with you?"

He cracks a smile. "Alright. What've you been up to? Last I'd heard you'd –"

"Burned in a church with my sister and twenty-six other vampires?" She shrugs. "I've been around."

"How'd you get out?"

"They didn't plan on me. I was a surprise. They didn't have enough vervain handy, gave me a lower dose. It wore off before they set the fire." It's the story she'd given Anna, all those years ago. It's almost true, too.

"Why didn't you come look for us?" he asks, quiet and serious. She's thrown for a second, and stops to look at him.

"Let's get one thing straight, Salvatore," she says as he meets her gaze. "You were my sister's boytoy, not mine. She turned you, not me. I don't _owe _you anything. _I am not my sister_."

He blinks back shock at the emotion in her voice. "I know. I know that."

"Why, because you watched me all summer to make sure?" She's pretty sure, let's say 90%, that that was him, and not the mystery-crow-fog vampire. His jaw clenches and she's completely sure.

"I had to –"

"Had to assess the threat level?" she cuts him off. She scoffs, and starts walking toward the Grill again, faster now. "Had to make sure I wasn't going to kill people, had to make sure I wasn't her."

"I was protecting this town," he says as he matches her pace.

"Oh you have no idea," she mutters as she starts to run. He follows. She's not trying to lose him, she'll take him to the Grill like she said, she just wants this conversation over. He knows nothing, she knows that now. He's as in the dark as a vampire can be.

But his brother isn't. She remembers now, that Damon was the one who arranged the spell. And she thinks about the crow and about the man she met a century and a half ago, and something clicks into place. Oh. Of course.

She stops a block before the Grill, and a second later he's right over her shoulder. They walk the rest of the way in silence.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

Matt does a little posturing with Stefan that has Elena rolling her eyes before she leads him over to the table Bonnie and Caroline are occupying. She recognizes the hungry look in Caroline's eyes, and smiles. She loves that girl so much.

She sits through ten minutes of Caroline so-not-subtly grilling Stefan for his life history, basking in the feeling of how-do-you-like-it, before the party is brought up. And then Bonnie has to try to play matchmaker, and now she's going to have to deal with Stefan at that too. Great.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

She doesn't see him again until History class the next day. She ignores Bonnie's raised eyebrows and bitten-back smiles as much as she can, trying to keep her eye-rolling to a minimum. It's not Bonnie's fault. If she were human, she'd probably be impressed with him too. Polite, respectful, and today's fashion trends show off his muscles much better than those old suits did.

History class is, of course, an easy A, considering how much of it she's lived through. But she's always careful when discussing local matters. Can't know too much. She gets most answers correct, of course, but some she chooses consciously to take a dive on. It makes her a more realistic teenager.

So when the question about the Battle of Willow Creek comes up, she decides now would be a good time to conveniently forget the night that is burned into her mind forever.

Mr. Tanner, of course, chooses to be a dick about it. She keeps her face carefully neutral and avoids his eyes.

"There were 346 casualties, unless you're counting local civilians." Stefan's face is as blank as hers, and she half wants to kick him for deciding to come to her rescue. He's been in town maybe a week at most as far as everyone else knows, he hasn't lived here since he was a kid, and _he shouldn't know that_. God, was she going to have to give him human lessons or something? She resists the urge to hide her face in her hands.

"That's correct, Mister …?"

"Salvatore."

"Salvatore. Any relation to the original settlers here at Mystic Falls?"

Stefan makes eye contact with her, lets her share in the joke as he says, "Distant." He's got one eyebrow raised as if to say, 'Isn't this funny?' And while she still kind of wants to kick him, yes, fine, it's funny. She purses her lips to keep herself from sticking out her tongue at him. Yes, alright, enough laughing at the dumb humans, they can't help that they're so uninformed.

She turns her face forward, determined to focus on the actual class.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

Bonnie finds her almost immediately at the party. She's got a drink for each of them, and she's dying to talk about the new man in Elena's life. "Come on, Elena! He's so obviously into you!"

"So, what? I'm just going to throw myself at him?"

"Why not? He's throwing himself at you!" _No, he's stalking me to make sure I'm a good vampire. _"What's the problem?" _The problem is that he dated my sister!_ "He's so pretty, Elena!" Bonnie whines out, almost looking pained by Stefan's prettiness.

Elena smiles, and has to admit, "Alright, he's a little pretty."

"He has that romance novel stare!" And Elena outright laughs because _he does, he so does_. And then she realizes that back in 1864, if the whole vampire thing hadn't, well, been a thing, it probably would've gone down that route instead. Two brothers vying for the affections of one fickle girl, when suddenly her twin sister appears to upset everything. It has Jane Austen all over it.

"Oh god, with his forehead like half overshadowing his eyes!" she says through giggles. "He so does! Oh my god." And she and Bonnie are now clutching each other, arms slung over each other's shoulders, as they laugh because it's just so ridiculous. He's so ridiculous. Everything is.

As they manage to calm back down a little, Bonnie looks Elena straight in the eyes. "It's your storybook romance, Elena. You've got to go for it." And then it's just a little sad, because, because if they were human, yeah, it might be.

"Is that what you _see_?" she asks, half-jokingly, trying to steer the conversation into safer waters.

Bonnie straightens up and strikes her fortune teller pose. "Absolutely. I see great romance in your future."

"Well then, Madame Psychic," Elena says, playing along, "where is my leading man? I don't see him anywhere." She over-exaggerates looking around for him.

"Well, you've got to give me a second. Grams says I have to concentrate." Bonnie closes her eyes and starts to focus.

"Wait, wait, you need a crystal ball," Elena laughs, trying to make it feel like a joke. Bonnie might actually be coming into the powers Elena knows she has. Emily had them, after all. Bonnie is a Bennet, that means something. She doesn't know what will happen when Bonnie actually does start to believe. She doesn't know what it will mean for them. She won't be able to hide anymore, after all. Elena grabs a beer bottle off a nearby table. "Here."

Bonnie smiles, and goes to take it. Their hands touch, and she freezes.

"Bonnie?" Elena asks, eyes wide. "Bonnie?" Bonnie comes back to herself, blinking rapidly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, sorry. That was weird," Bonnie says, clutching the beer bottle.

"What – what happened? What did you see?" Elena's carefully maintaining distance,

"I saw a – a crow. And fog, and a man. And I felt … I'm drunk. It's the drinking!" Bonnie says, shaking her head to dismiss the whole business. "There's nothing psychic about it." She lifts her head to smile up at Elena. But Elena isn't smiling. Her brow is furrowed and her eyes are searching the crowd for real this time. "Elena, you don't actually believe this crap." She can't, because it's ridiculous. Because this is real life, and magic, psychics, witches, that stuff doesn't exist.

But Elena looks so worried.

"Elena!" Elena jerks her head back to look at Bonnie. "Do you? Do you believe?" And it's such a ridiculous question that Bonnie wants to laugh it out, wants it to be carried on giggles and alcohol, but somehow it's become serious.

Elena bites her cheek and thinks over what she's about to say. "Bonnie, you know I think you can do anything," is what she settles for, but she doesn't laugh this time.

Bonnie opens her mouth, then closes it, looking for something to say. A moment of nothing but eye contact passes between the two, before a nearby drunk guy stumbles into Elena, interrupting the moment.

"I'm gonna go get a refill," Bonnie says, suddenly, too freaked to continue the conversation. She speeds away, dodging drunk high schoolers right and left, avoiding physical contact with everyone.

Elena thinks about going after her, when suddenly – "Hi." She whirls around, and there is Stefan Salvatore in all his glory. She loses her breath for a second.

"Hi," she says, finally.

"What was that about?" he asks, jerking his head towards where Bonnie just walked away.

She wonders if she could trust him with the information. "Nothing," she says, shaking her head slightly. He doesn't exactly trust her with anything, after all.

"You're upset about something," he observes, eyes locked on her face, head tilted downwards, closer to hers.

She bites her lip, before offering him her arm. "Let's take a walk," she says, before walking off in the direction of the falls.

He catches up fairly quickly, and offers her his arm with a grin. And she can't help but laugh because they have done this before, haven't they? So she smiles as she takes it, and they continue on together.

She waits until all the humans are out of earshot, until it's just the two of them. "Go ahead," she says, face calm and eyes forward, "ask your questions."

He hesitates for a second, wondering about the change in behavior. But he's got _so many questions._ "How long have you lived here?"

"Two years," she answers, smiling at the memory. "The Gilberts were my foster family then."

"How did you manage that?"

"I know someone who's good with computers. Or, well, they don't know me, but I know them."

"You compel them?" He has to ask.

"With money," she retorts, laughing a little. "Much safer, trust me."

He nods, thinking over his next question. "The Gilberts – did they – "

"No," she says, face hard now. "I – they would have killed me. They thought I was – I was human to them." _I was their daughter_, is what she doesn't say. She doesn't know if he'd believe her, and that doubt, that she wasn't _theirs_ and they weren't _hers_, that might hurt more than a stake through the heart.

She's blinking back tears and she knows he can see, so she uses their arrival at the bridge as a pretext to break away from him, to walk on her own for a bit. "I'm sorry," he says as she turns back to look at him, still standing on the edge of the cliff. "For your loss." He means it, too. He can see that it hurts her, he's seen that all summer.

She swallows down the tears, and tries to smile. "Thank you." And she means it, too. It's more meaningful when it comes from someone who knows the whole situation.

"So, uh," he smiles, and joins her on the bridge, "can I keep asking questions?" He leans on the railing looking over the falls, and she joins him.

"Fire away."

"Bonnie?"

"What about her?"

"Who is she to you?"

"She's my best friend. She was the first one to welcome me, when I got here. She walked right up to me and said, 'You look lost. Let me help. I can tell that we're going to be great friends.'" Elena smiles softly. "She introduced me to Caroline, too." Stefan isn't looking at the falls anymore. "She's got you pegged already too, you know," she says, turning her smile on him.

"I heard," he can't help but smile in return. "Romance novel stare?"

"Oh come on, you have to know you're doing it," Elena scoffs. He tries to hide a grin by ducking his head and shrugging a little.

"And, uh, Matt?" he asks, moving on. "I mean, I heard – "

"Yes," she cuts him off. "We dated. For a while."

He nods. "Did you feed on him?" It's what vampires often do. It's convenient. It's what Katherine did.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Guy shows up with a bunch of bite marks, people start asking questions. Who's the first one they look at? His girlfriend. Too risky."

"You're very – careful."

"I'm good at hiding." _I have to be. There's still someone out there I'm hiding from._

It's personal, but he feels like he needs to know. "Did you love him?"

He kind of expects her to close off again, to get angry. Instead she just sighs, leaning her chin on her arms on the railing. "He's easy to love. He's so … _good_." She smiles, a little mockingly. "To quote all the movies, yeah, I loved him. I just don't know if I was in love with him."

"Is that why you broke up?"

She shakes her head. "He started asking all these questions. About – about college, and maybe marriage. I couldn't give him that. And then …" she trails off.

"Then they died," he finishes for her.

"Yeah."

He's still looking at her, at her face, and she's pretending not to notice.

"Satisfied?" she asks, straightening up and turning towards him, only her left hand on the railing now.

"What?"

"Satisfied that I'm not Katherine? That I'm not like her?"

Her voice is so … _something_, so sad, so angry, and so cold, and so _something else_, that he loses all his words for a moment. "I never thought you were," he tries to defend, resting his hand on hers.

She looks him straight in the eye. "Yeah. You did." And then she walks away, back to the party, leaving him on the bridge.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

He spent the whole summer watching her. That's true. And what's also true is that he doesn't quite know why.

She's not Katherine. He knows that, now. She's nothing like her. He doesn't know if she set herself up to be everything her sister wasn't, but she is, somehow. She's so kind. And he's seen her mourning the Gilberts as though – as though they had really been her parents, and he has all these questions because what he really wants is to know her.

He wants to know what her favorite food is, and what her family was like, and what she thought of him as a human, and what she's been up to for 145 years. He wants to know her so badly that he's been so incredibly tactless, because he's so close to something that he hasn't felt for so long, and he can't, he can't put it in the wrong place this time. He's never had the greatest taste in women, and he thinks one more wrong choice might destroy the fragile peace he has built for himself.

And so he goes after her, follows her back to the party, because he needs to make this right. He makes things as clear as he can with Caroline, because he doesn't want any confusion here. He's got a goal.

"I'm sorry." She turns away from where Matt just left, to face him. "You're right, I was treating you like her. And I'm sorry." She doesn't say anything, brows furrowed and eyes searching his face to find an alternate meaning. "Can we start over?" he asks, smiling his nicest smile.

She looks him up and down, thinking. "No," she decides. "I don't forget. But, I have been known to forgive." She offers him her hand. "Friends?"

It's not quite what he wants, but he knows he needs to prove himself before she'll be ready for more. So he takes her hand, shaking it firmly. "Friends."

She smiles, before some movement behind him catches her eye. Jeremy is sneaking off into the woods, a half-full bottle of scotch in his hands. "You've got to be kidding me."

He turns to see Jeremy just disappearing into the trees. "Brother?"

"Yeah. I got to go after him," she says, apologetically.

"No, yeah, go ahead," he says, nodding his head. "Uh, do you need any help?"

"I think I can handle a drunk teenager," she says, smiling, as she follows Jeremy. He's not too far ahead, so she doesn't need to use the vampire speed. The less she uses it the better, anyway. She spots him stumbling through tree roots ahead. "Jeremy!"

"Don't start with me, Elena!" he calls back, drunk and angry and kind of wanting to cry.

"Oh I am beyond starting with you, Jeremy!" she yells as she starts to jog to catch up. He hears her speed up and tries to match it, but ends up tripping over a log. He shoots out his arms to catch his fall, eyes closing. He doesn't open them until he's sure he's stopped falling, the world spinning a little from the drink. He opens them slowly, and there's Vicki. Vicki, cold, pale, on the ground, bleeding from her neck.

"Vicki!" he screams, rolling off to the side. "Oh my god, oh my god, Vicki!" He's breathing hard, and now he is crying, and he can hear Elena saying something in the background but right now everything is Vicki and blood and tears and fear and she looks dead.

And then Elena is crouching across Vicki's body, face pale and strained, shaking him to get him to come to himself. "Jeremy!" He gets the feeling she's been calling his name for a while. "Jeremy, we need to get her help." And he nods, cause right, cause she's still breathing, she needs help, and so he worms his arms under her cold, cold body, and he picks her up. Elena runs ahead to warn people, and he can't believe this is happening.

Elena sees Stefan when she reaches the party, sees him make the realization, hears him speed away, and she's convinced that this was a surprise to him. It wasn't him, and he didn't help orchestrate it. So maybe he's really on her side, although considering who she thinks did it, that's not a safe bet.

Half of her wants to speed after him, to get away from the overwhelming smell of blood, to give him the answers he's searching for, but she knows she has to stay. So she fights down the black eyes and the urges, and guides Jeremy away when the paramedics get there. She can wait.

_-_-_(-_-)_-_-_

"Hello, brother." He's frozen. He doesn't know if it's from fear, shock, or something else.

He hasn't seen Damon in 15 years, and now he's here, and all he can think to say is, "Crow's a bit much, don't you think?"

Damon's eyes are unreadable as he just chuckles. "You should see what I can do with the fog."

He tries to feel him out, tries to figure out why he's here. Damon, in true Damon fashion, simply dodges every question, throwing joke after joke, until suddenly he doesn't.

"However, I'm fairly certain your answer can be summed up all into one little word." He smirks and the next word that comes out of his mouth isn't a joke, it's a barb, a prod, an attack. "Elena." Stefan freezes because _he knows. _Because Elena can take care of herself, much better than he can look after her, but this is Damon and suddenly he's scared, scared for everyone Elena cares about, because he wouldn't put it past Damon just to torture her for – for not being Katherine, for catching Stefan's interest, for Katherine disliking her, for all kinds of things. "Real shocker, discovering she's alive, right? Somehow, somehow, she's alive, and Katherine's _dead_," he sneers.

"That wasn't her," he's practically pleading. "That wasn't her fault."

"Oh, no, of course not!" Damon smiles. "Just doesn't really seem fair, now does it? Think I could even the playing field? She's older, certainly, but there are so many ways to overcome that." Stefan's biting back rage and fear, hands balled into white knuckled fists, because Elena doesn't deserve this, doesn't deserve Damon taking out their feud on her. "You could help!" Damon exclaims, clapping a hand on Stefan's shoulder. "Come on, we'll get some human blood in you, and we could take her down, as brothers. It's what Katherine would've wanted. Besides, when's the last time you had anything stronger than a squirrel?"

"Damon," Stefan warns.

"'_Damon'_," Damon mocks. "Yeah, you're right. Maybe going straight to the point isn't enough, maybe I should go after that delicious best friend first. What was her name? Bonnie? Or how about that ex?" _He was listening_. "How stupid was that, by the way?" Damon's goes into a falsetto, "'I loved him, but I wasn't _in_ love with him.' You've got your work cut out for you with that one, bro. Or maybe I should take her 'brother' away, since a dead sister doesn't seem to be doing it for her."

And that's when Stefan loses it, when he leaps and pushes Damon through the window, only to land on the glass and asphalt all on his own.

He coughs as he picks himself up, hands and face and shirt cut up, and it _hurts_.

"Are you always this dramatic?" Stefan's on his feet in a second, and Damon's whirling around, to see Elena emerging from the forest. She glances up at the shattered window. "How much is that going to cost to replace? Am I always going to have worry about property damage with you two?"

"Elena!" Damon appears in front of her, holding her hand. "So nice to see you again," he murmurs, bowing over and kissing her hand. Elena smiles, before grabbing his head with the hand he just kissed and kneeing him in the face.

Damon cries out and staggers over a bit, before slowly standing up. "That was for Vicki," Elena says, smiling. Damon pulls a face at her, then wipes the blood off his face.

"So that's how it's going to be, huh?" he asks, face dark.

"Pretty sure that was always how it was going to be," she responds. She spent centuries with Katherine, she knows how to read a situation. A truce was never in the cards.

"Damon, wherever you go, people die." Stefan comes to stand by her side.

Damon scoffs. "That's a given." They're _vampires_, after all.

"Not here. I won't allow it." Stefan steps forward, staring Damon down, as Elena rolls her eyes. _Boys_.

"I take that as an invitation," Damon says as he returns Stefan's gaze head on.

"I'm giving you a list," she says, interrupting their meaningful stare moment, "of people you don't touch."

"What?" both brothers ask.

"Telling you not to touch anyone would only provoke you," she explains, stepping between the two of them. "And I can't be everywhere all the time," she says to Stefan, because he really should know how to handle his brother better than this by now. "Jenna Sommers. Jeremy Gilbert. Bonnie Bennet." She delivers the names straight to Damon, eyes locked on his. "If you touch them, screw with them, or cause them any kind of pain," she says, stepping right up in front of him, so close they're almost touching, "I will rip your heart out, and _feed it to you_." And he looks in her eyes and he sees that she would, and for a moment she looks more like Katherine than he finds comfortable. He finds himself nodding without knowing when he started.

Elena smirks, and then she's gone, leaving the brothers to deal with each other on their own.


End file.
